Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature?' and 'Letters to Remond de Montmort'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
Passions reside in confused perceptions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The passions of monads reside in their confused perceptions.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715)
     A reaction: He thinks perceptions come in degrees of confusion, all the way up to God, who alone has fully clear perceptions. He blames in on these confused perceptions.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: If an abstraction principle is going to be acceptable, then it should not 'inflate', i.e. it should not result in there being more abstracts than there are objects. By this mark Hume's Principle will be acceptable, but Frege's Law V will not.
     From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.307)
     A reaction: I take this to be motivated by my own intuition that abstract concepts had better be rooted in the world, or they are not worth the paper they are written on. The underlying idea this sort of abstraction is that it is 'shared' between objects.